When the title of a movie consists of a number and the name of a tool, expectations are likely to be pretty low. So it feels somewhat incongruous to call “Hatchet III” a disappointment. Yet it is, because the earlier installments in this franchise showed flashes of wit. This one — although, like its predecessors, written by Adam Green — is too busy with limb-severings and gunfire to bother being intelligent.

As the film opens, Marybeth (Danielle Harris) from “Hatchet II” staggers out of what is thought to be a haunted swamp, covered in blood and blabbering about a slaughter. A dimwitted sheriff (Zach Galligan) concludes that she did the slaughtering, but his search parties soon find that the monstrous Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) is actually responsible and isn’t done yet. The guy can certainly wield a hatchet, and virtually everyone who goes after him ends up sliced and diced, to the movie’s detriment. It would have been more satisfying had Mr. Green and BJ McDonnell, the first-time director, allowed a few more stories of survival.

There is so little to the script that the only actor who really makes an impression is Caroline Williams, playing a reporter who has been ridiculed in the past for promulgating the Victor Crowley legend. For once in a horror movie, the journalist is the smart one.